This invention generally is related to vehicle lighting systems and, more specifically, to a set of auxiliary lights which can be attached to a vehicle, particularly the rear of the vehicle, when the rear of the vehicle has its original equipment lights partially obscured, to provide highly visible lighting.
Vehicle lighting systems are well known to the art. Vehicles, such as automobiles and trucks, include original equipment taillights that render the car visible from the rear in the dark and, other times, light when the driver applies the brakes, or signals to turn. Sometimes the original vehicle lights can be obscured, particularly if the vehicle is towing a trailer or has a rack, such as a conventional bicycle carrier rack, including a bicycle, attached to the rear of the vehicle. The trailer, the carrier rack or the bicycle often blocks the taillights creating a potentially dangerous situation.
A number of attempts have been made to provide supplemental, auxiliary or additional lighting for vehicles in general. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,490, to Woodbury, discloses a light mount for a towed vehicle; U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,591 to Chudzik, provides an attachable auxiliary lighting system; U.S. Pat. No. 4,859,982, to Seaburg, provides for a wireless taillight system; U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,309, to Rasinski, provides for a detachable vehicle lighting fixture; U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,077, to Richard, Jr., discloses bicycle carriers for buses and the like which include taillights; and U.S. Patent to Whitley, Jr. No. 3,885,146, provides for a detachable tail light assembly for boat trailers. The known prior art expedients still suffer from significant drawbacks. For the most part they are complex, including multiple parts. Moreover, they are not necessarily adapted to mount to a bicycle rack, for example, that has bicycles already mounted thereon which obstruct the view of the lights. Furthermore, many of the prior art designs have limited utility in that they are specifically designed for one application, such as taillights only, and lack broader utility.
It would be advantageous, therefore, to have an auxiliary lighting system that can be attached to a rear mounted vehicular bicycle rack having bicycles mounted thereon to provide unobstructed taillights to improve visibility and safety. Furthermore, it would be advantageous to have such auxiliary lights which have diverse applications, such as functioning as headlights, fog lights or halogen spot lights.